CHICAGO -- Saturday was far from perfect for rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the Bears' first-team offense.
Head coach Matt Eberflus called it a "professional" day for his young signal-caller. It's a day that started with three straight three-and-outs, multiple miscommunications, and an intentional grounding call.
It looked like the day would be all about the dips in the rookie quarterback roller coaster.
But Williams' day didn't end after nine uninspiring snaps. Eberflus kept sending his rookie quarterback out there against the Cincinnati Bengals' second-team defense, and things eventually flipped.
The electric jump the Bears' offense needed came when Williams fired a deep ball down the seam to speedy wide receiver Tyler Scott. Scott beat the corner off the line, and Williams put enough air under the ball for Scott to be able to haul it in, but cornerback Josh Newton yanked Scott down before the ball arrived for a 43-yard pass interference penalty.
"I was a little hurt because I really wanted that one, to be honest with you," Williams said of the pass to Scott after the Bears' 27-3 win at Soldier Field.
While Williams and Scott didn't complete the hook-up, the pass interference energized the Bears' offense. That drive ended in a 37-yard field goal, and the electric current fully hit the unit on their final drive of the day before halftime.
Chicago Bears
With the ball near midfield, Williams stepped up in the pocket, pirouetted out to the left, and launched a dot to Rome Odunze down the left sideline off his back foot for a gain of 45.
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"Caleb did his magic back there and placed the ball exactly where it needed to be," Odunze said after the game.
"It’s pretty unreal, honestly," Odunze continued. "I just watched it back. Man he’s throwing off of one leg, putting it on my outside shoulder. It’s like, oooh! It’s magical what he’s doing back there in that backfield. He’s special."
On the next play, Williams found Odunze again for what should have been their first unofficial touchdown hook-up of their NFL careers. Williams danced around to evade pressure, froze a defender, and rolled left before firing a dart to Odunze while he was falling out of bounds. Unfortunately, Odunze was standing on the end line when he caught the ball, negating what might have been Williams' best play of the day.
Odunze noted that the way the end zone was marked -- without the backline being filled in -- confused him on the play, but he knows he has to be better.
"Man, that was just a mistake by me," Odunze said. "I thought I was Tony toe-tap back there. I thought I had at least a foot. You seen me, I was confident with it, too. A mistake. I got to know where I’m at on the field. Got to have an awareness to be able to do that."
Still, the back-to-back Williams-to-Odunze moments show the chemistry between the Bears' top rookies starting to crystallize. The Bears drafted Odunze with the No. 9 overall pick to give Williams a fellow star rookie with whom he could grow as this journey begins.
Williams and Odunze have been building their rapport since before the draft, and the fruits of their labor are starting to show.
“We’re going to be explosive," Williams said after the game of his connection with Odunze. "We’re two rooks but we’re trying to catch up to the old guys as fast as we can to make sure that we are right there on par with them to be able to be efficient, function, go out there and be explosive, be on the same page and win games. That’s ultimately what we are here to do. Having a guy like that was drafted with me, we’re only going to keep growing and building this connection.”
Two plays later, Williams once again navigated the pocket to avoid pressure. He made multiple rushers miss before escaping to the left for a 7-yard touchdown run behind left guard Teven Jenkins.
"Elite. Elite. You seen him out there making people look silly? Yeah, it’s elite," wide receiver DJ Moore said of Williams' pocket awareness.
Williams' late string of brilliant plays rescued what would have been an otherwise dull day. There is still a lot of work for the Bears' young signal-caller and their offense to do before the Tennessee Titans arrive for the season-opener.
The cohesion between Williams and his receivers has to continue to improve. The offensive line has to stay healthy and gel. The slow start has to be eliminated from the manual.
"It showed what we need to get better at," left guard Teven Jenkins said of Saturday's performance. "We can be explosive but we have to start faster. We cant wait until the third or fourth drive in the NFL. Offenses are too good and defenses are too good."
Williams has now played 43 snaps over the Bears' last two preseason games.
All told, the No. 1 pick has gone 10-for-20 for 170 yards and one rushing touchdown. Those numbers mean nothing. They are unimpressive on the surface, but Williams has done within those 43 snaps is show that he is, as tight end Cole Kmet said, "different."
"He always rises to the occasion," Eberflus said of Williams after Saturday's game.
The Bears have spent the entire offseason constructing a roadmap to develop and prepare Williams for a highly anticipated rookie season. The roster-building, staff overhaul, and meticulous quarterback plan were all done to ensure Williams will have a smooth takeoff and to maximize his rare talent.
Of all the tentacles of the Bears' exhaustive plan to not waste Williams' talent, the most vital part of the support system might be the one that's hardest to quantify: The daily battles and lessons delivered by an ascending defense that has made it its mission to sharpen Williams with every rep.
Those daily lessons have caused clunky and sometimes rickety practices. But the value of those daily struggles has been apparent during the 43 preseason snaps in which Williams has not had to try to evade Montez Sweat, throw around Tremaine Edmunds, or make a tight-window throw against Jaylon Johnson.
“That our defense is really good," Williams said when asked what he has learned in two preseason games. "Because I go verse them every day. I’ve learned that our defense is really good. They have done a great job helping me, preparing me. Defensive guys talk to me about things that I do, things that I can get better at.
“The defensive guy speaking up, telling me what they see from their lens has only made me better. I tell them, and we’re all excited that we’re going to win a lot of games and have a lot of fun doing it.”
Forty-three preseason snaps will wind up being a footnote in whatever Williams' NFL career becomes. They'll blow away in the wind when his NFL days turn to bones and then dust.
It's unlikely Williams will play Thursday in the Bears' preseason finale against the Kansas City Chiefs, so whatever comes next will matter.
Be it a slow start, off-platform dart, long touchdown run, or inexplicable interception, the next snaps of Williams' career will wind up being the first words written in ink about an NFL story with worlds of potential.
No, these 43 snaps will likely prove meaningless to the end game. But they have shown that the Bears' plan, one which they have poured themselves into since February, is coming together as a new era prepares to dawn.
Caleb Williams is rising to the occasion, pushing himself and his teammates to chase an unattainable perfection. Their goals are still in the distance, but the combination of a cycle-breaking plan, potentially generational prospect, and a city trying to will both to success has created a feeling that something special is brewing.
Forty-three preseason snaps aren't predictive of a Hall of Fame career, but everything about Caleb Williams feels different.
So, the next snap Williams takes will probably be one to bookmark in your memory.
It just might be the start of something you won't forget.
